Composer and musician Joseph Bertolozzi’s public art project ‘Bridge Music,’ is a sound-art installation featuring New York’s Mid-Hudson Bridge as the instrument itself.
Launched in 2009 during the 400th anniversary celebrations of the Hudson River, Bridge Music was created by recording the sounds of steel on the bridge’s different surfaces (guard rails, girders etc.) with various bows and mallets and using those sounds to compose new works, making the toll suspension bridge the largest percussion instrument in the world.
Free interactive listening stations are permanently installed on the East and West bridge towers and are available to the public from April through October 31, according to a recent Poughkeepsie Journal article. The music contains no other tones than those of the bridge itself.
In 2009 his album Bridge Music, a 40-minute collection of 10 musical tracks, reached #18 on the Billboard Classical Crossover Music Chart. CDs and digital downloads of Bertolozzi’s music are available on the Delos and Blue Wings Press labels at Amazon.com, iTunes, Rhapsody, Barnes & Noble and www.JosephBertolozzi.com. The album Bridge Music is on the Delos label (DE 1045).
The Poughkeepsie Journal reports that Bertolozzi is composing music for the Eiffel Tower administration, which reserves the right to hear the music before considering installations and a possible interactive kiosk. The public can expect a Tower Music album out on iTunes sometime in the second half of 2015.
Photo: © 2009, Blue Wings Press